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Apple G5 Ads Banned In UK
Justen writes "The Independent Television Commission has quietly banned Apple from airing an advertisement (in QuickTime here) for the Power Mac G5 in the UK. The Committee says that, prior to the initial broadcast of the ad, it was critical of the assertion that the Power Mac G5 is "the world's fastest, most powerful personal computer." However, Apple supplied what was asserted to be "fair and even" data, based partially on SPEC benchmarks, which "substantiated" Apple's claims and "satisfied" the concerns of their "IT expert." However, the Committee says some "viewers complained that the advertising was misleading," and thus, after an investigation, it reversed its original decision. The Committee has now decided that the ad "should not be re-shown in its current form." Conspiracy theorists take note, Apple's sales in the UK are up 36%, so far, this year."
While some Apple fans may consider this censorship, personally I applaud the enforcement of standards in advertising.
If standards were forced for truth-in-advertising in the U.S., we'd not only never hear about the G5 being the fastest computer, we'd also not hear about how much we can do for so little from Microsoft. We'd also stop having the stupid claims in oversized truck and SUV ads, diet pills, etc.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
I remember learning on a tour of Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory that in the UK, one cannot advertise anything that cannot be _PROVEN_. IIRC, Ben and Jerry's had to rename one of their flavors from something like "World's Best Ice Cream" to something else.
This seems like an instance of _that_.
PLEASE, no one make any "lickable" puns.
-A
I don't think any particular computer can be considered "the fastest in the world." Each architecture is designed such that one will always outshine the other in a specific set of functions. Apple may be faster in benchmark X, while Intel is faster in benchmark Y, while AMD is faster in benchmark Z, etc. etc. Apple does have some validity to their claim, but so would Intel and AMD if they were to announce themselves as the fastest in the world to.
That's after the fact though. Companies will always proclaim their products as "the best, the fastest, the strongest." It's a fact of marketing- what company would say "Our products are mediocre, behind X and Y" and expect decent sales?
What a shame such "integrity" doesn't actually extend to anything but a very few "unpopular" ads. How many people who complained about this ad were "that guy".
You all know the one I'm talking about. The guy you knew in middle school who hated Macs for no apparent reason. The one who would crow about bad financial reports while you were just trying to eat your Jello. Or maybe it's a "tech" guy you know who can't understand why anyone would use a Mac. "Windows is everywhere, it's clearly better" he'll say. Or "It's good enough, who cares about using anything else, Macs suck".
There is an astounding amount of vitriol between Windows zealots and Apple (and of course Apple zealots and Microsoft). I find it difficult to credit this ad's banishment in the UK to "integrity in advertising". Instead I'd chalk it up to "caving to zealotry" on the part of the politicos.
In Norway we have similar rules: You cannot air commercial claiming something that might be false.
That means you cannot say your price is cheaper or faster or whatevre unless we are talking about to totally identical products. We are not here. The processor in the mac is totally different from a processor from AMD, Intel, Sun, etc. I can guarantee that if you compare a totally specialized processor for only one single operation, then that processor might be faster than the G5 processor in that particular field.
It will then be false to say the processor used in the G5 is faster, even though the other only was faster on lets say integar calculations...